Puddle Jumping(15)

His gaze traveled my face again before he focused on my hair, saying exactly what he had on his mind. “Because then you would understand.”

* * *

It was those words that made me fall in love with him. Right there in that spot. Because he wanted me to be like him. That was his normalcy.

And I knew exactly what he meant.

When I drove him to his house, I didn’t wait to be invited inside. I just went. His mom looked like she was about to shit a brick over the amount of glittery fairy dust we trailed in. But his dad, Rick, just laughed. I’m sure I had a guilty look on my face or red cheeks or something because they kept staring at me as I told them about what had happened while Colton was busy upstairs taking a shower, washing stuff off to the best of his ability.

Mr. Neely, dark hair and kind eyes, finally took advantage of a pulse of silence to clear his throat and asked me what I had been up to over the past seven years. It caught me off guard and I did that weird mouth thing I’d been doing around Quinn the day before, which only made Mrs. Neely laugh harder because her son, the one who was diagnosed with having a disorder of some kind could speak eloquent sentences and I couldn’t even make my lips work.

The reason I was so flustered was because I knew there was something great starting between me and Colton and I wasn’t sure how his parents felt about that. There’s always the off chance they know that something more is progressing. And while I wasn’t about to pull out a business card with my name and “Certified Virgin” printed on it, I almost wanted to just so they would feel comfortable with me being alone with him. Seriously. I was giddy and rattled from holding his hand.

I imagined kissing him would probably send me to the hospital. Again.

They ended up asking me to stay for dinner but I wasn’t quite sure Colton would like me messing up his schedule even more that day. So I hedged a little, telling them I needed to check with my parents. And right when I was about to excuse myself to call my mom and get her stamp of approval before approaching Colton about it, he appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

“Colton? We’ve asked Lilly to stay for dinner,” Mrs. Neely called to him.

It was like I did one of those cool-ass slow motion tricks from the movies. You know, the kind where I would turn and my hair would fan out all around me and land beautifully on my back as sparkle dust plumed outward and onto their fine cherry floor. I’d lock eyes with Colton and he’d smile and nod, extending his hand toward me like we were in some fairytale.

Well, it was kinda like that. But not really. Okay. Not at all. Instead, I turned too fast and tripped over my feet, sending my elbow into the banister next to the door. Hard.

Mr. Neely was on his feet immediately and rushed over to see if I was okay and I shrugged it off while trying not to look as embarrassed as I felt. I rubbed my elbow and tried not to cry.

Colton gave his mom an animated look and nodded his head. “Then I’ll hide all the scissors and chewing gum.” It made the entire room grow quiet before he looked over at me. “I know how upset you were last time when I had to cut your hair.”

My jaw was on the floor. He’d totally cracked a joke.

“Then I guess you should hide the mattresses, too,” I shot back playfully.

The silence that followed that statement made me want to crawl in a hole and die. Because Colton may not have gotten the innuendo . . . but his parents sure did.

That started my weekly dinners with the family. I didn’t push him into inviting me, but waited on one of his parents to extend the invitation instead. He never objected and I really loved seeing him at his house because he was so much more relaxed. I saw a side of him there I didn’t get to see at school when he was trying to focus on what he was expected to do.

The impressive thing about school was the more I hung out with him, the more people started to really see him, too. Especially the girls. Because, let’s face it, a cute boy is a cute boy, whether he’s all that different or not. This made it easier for him in his other classes, since people were warming up to him. But it made it all that much harder on me because I was constantly wondering if he enjoyed their company and conversation more than mine.

Though, once he started holding my hand, he never really stopped. Our palms were like ultra-strength magnets that just slapped together every time we were in each other’s vicinity. We held hands. Hard. Always. Up and down the halls of the school. After school. In the car. Hands and fingers.

Always touching.





The start of any relationship is really la la la and happy-happy, right? I mean, I’m a teenager for God’s sake. And so is he. So, there are hormones involved and all kinds of crazy things adults never really tell us about . . . at least not in words we can understand.

I can go from ecstatically happy to massively insecure in the span of a second. I can go from feeling completely at ease with Colton, to wondering if I’ll do anything right ever again.

It’s hard to be level headed when I can barely control my thoughts, much less my impulses.

Teenage girls are stupid.

I can say that because I am one. And I know we’re all competitive with one another, even if we pretend not to be. We totally are.

Every damn day I walked into school I was aware that the blondes with the perky boobs and the bubble butts get the guys. I was aware my best friend is one of them. And I was painfully aware that I am skinny, but jiggly, and the definition of average-brown-hair-brown-eyed girl.